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Gonzaga coach Mark Few seeks to return the No. 21 Bulldogs to national title contention

Coach Mark Few wants to return No. 21 Gonzaga to the list of national title contenders, and he's assembled a loaded team to get there. Gonzaga went 26-9 last season, and finished 14-4 in the West Coast Conference, losing the regular-season title to archrival Saint Mary's. The Zags lost to top-seeded Houston in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the first time since 2012 they did not advance to the second weekend.

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No mountain too high for Itoje and England with Australia first up in autumn series

England captain stresses team must display their full power in Saturday’s first of four home internationals in November

Just occasionally even the world’s best rugby players are genuinely taken aback. In mid-September, Maro Itoje, recuperating from his British & Irish Lions exertions, stood and watched an England training session and could not believe the pace, intensity and all-round zip on view. “I was thinking: ‘Wow, I need to get back in the gym, I need to make sure I come back quickly,’” he admitted this week.

Itoje says his former teammate Mako Vunipola was just as impressed – “He didn’t remember it being that fast” – on a visit to England’s base in Bagshot the other day. Another recent retiree, the England scrum-half Danny Care, felt similarly. All of which has been fuelling Itoje’s growing belief, with the 2027 Rugby World Cup on the horizon, that “there’s no mountain we can’t climb”.

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Liam Lawson cleared of blame by FIA for marshals scare at Mexico Grand Prix

  • Lawson close to hitting marshals running across track

  • FIA still carrying out investigation into incident

Formula One’s governing body the FIA have issued a statement absolving the Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson of all blame in an exceptionally dangerous incident when he came close to hitting two marshals running across the track in front of him at the Mexico Grand Prix.

The statement is a strong rebuttal to an attempt to hold Lawson responsible made by the Mexican racing federation, the Organización Mexicana De Automovilismo Internacional (Omdai), while the FIA is still carrying out an investigation into the incident.

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Premier League confirms Manchester United v Newcastle is only Boxing Day game

  • League says issues rooted in more European matches

  • It promises increased Boxing Day games next year

The Premier League has confirmed there will be only one Premier League game on Boxing Day, with Manchester United to host Newcastle United at 8pm. The late kick-off may cause travel issues for Newcastle fans, with public transport limited on the holiday.

The league cited the expansion of European competition in explaining its schedule. The last time Boxing Day was a Friday, in 2014, there was a full top-flight programme.

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Chantelle Cameron gives up WBC title in protest against women’s boxing rules

  • British fighter demands right to three-minute rounds

  • WBC was set for purse bid for Cameron v Sandy Ryan

Chantelle Cameron relinquished her WBC super-lightweight title on Friday in a protest over women’s boxing rules, with the British fighter demanding the right to fight three-minute rounds like her male counterparts.

Cameron’s decision to vacate her championship belt stems from her opposition to the World Boxing Council’s mandate that women compete in two-minute rounds, which the 34-year-old views as unequal treatment.

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Wallabies firing again in time for England clash after return to free-running DNA

Victory over hosts at Twickenham 12 months ago proved a launchpad for Australia to begin climb back from nadir

If only Henry Slade had managed to stop Ben Donaldson getting that offload away, if only Ollie Sleightholme had been able to make that wrap-up tackle on Len Ikitau, if only Marcus Smith was able to catch Max Jorgensen. But Slade didn’t, Sleightholme couldn’t, Smith wasn’t, and Jorgensen scored in the corner. This time last year the Wallabies beat England 42-37, their first victory against them at Twickenham in nine years, and it was, the players will tell you themselves, the moment when everything changed. “This game last year was a big turning point for us as a group,” says the Australia captain, Harry Wilson. “It really made us believe that on our day we can beat anybody in the world.”

Twelve months ago England weren’t worried about the Wallabies so much as they were worried for the Wallabies. The one thing an Australian team doesn’t want is pity, but that’s what they got. They had won two Tests out of nine in 2023, when they embarrassed themselves at the World Cup, and, after a few months during which he seemed to spend most of his time bowling around in a cork hat and shouting at everyone about how rubbish Australian rugby was, their head coach Eddie Jones had defected to Japan. A couple of their better players had hopped codes to play in the NRL and they had dropped to ninth in the world rankings. It was all getting a bit existential.

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Clash of styles awaits as Frank and Maresca face off in growing rivalry

Pragmatism meets dogmatism when Spurs host Chelsea, with both head coaches still trying to win fans over

A few managers were in the running when Chelsea were looking for a replacement for Mauricio Pochettino in May 2024. It was an extensive process and involved the club talking to Thomas Frank before they settled on Enzo Maresca.

The feeling was that Maresca’s positional game and focus on possession made him most suited to Chelsea’s squad of technicians. Frank, who had performed brilliantly at Brentford, had to wait for his next opportunity. Overlooked by Manchester United after they fired Erik ten Hag, it arrived when Tottenham hired the Dane after sacking Ange Postecoglou last summer.

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